WARREN BUFFETT, SOFTWARE TESTER? Famed investor Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., is known for avoiding technology stocks because he doesn't like to invest in things he doesn't understand. Why, then, was he at Microsoft Corp.'s technology-heavy CEO Summit in Redmond last week?

Sitting next to Microsoft's Bill Gates during a news conference at the event, Buffett offered this explanation: "Microsoft has this policy of trying to make their software as user-friendly as possible, so that almost anyone can handle it," he said. "In doing that over the years, they've had this chimpanzee that they tested all their new products on. Last week, the chimp died. Bill, in a panic, called me and said, 'We need you, Warren.' "

AVOIDING JAIN'S NAME: A vocal investor at the InfoSpace annual shareholder meeting last week had a sly way of asking a very interesting question: "Could you elaborate on the vulnerability of the stock if one disgruntled shareholder decided to sell off his stock?"

The questioner did not name anyone specifically, but everyone in the room knew whom he was talking about.

"Got anyone in mind?" quipped InfoSpace CEO Jim Voelker, refusing to say the name of ousted founder Naveen Jain. Jain, who now holds a 15 percent stake in the Bellevue Internet services company, has been reducing his stake ever since he was fired in December. That has caused a certain level of volatility in the stock.

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Voelker, who took over the troubled company in December, reassured investors by saying he was aware of "the theoretical large shareholder" and would explore ways "to keep our currency stable."

OFF, OFF BROADWAY: If the price is right, Vanessa McGrady will write you into her script.

The Seattle playwright estimates that she needs $25,000 to produce her show -- called "bodyBODY: Aphrodite Raves" -- this summer. So she sent an e-mail to about 600 people last week asking for sponsorships.

For a gift of $100, McGrady will include your quarter-page ad in the program. For $500, she will write your name on the body of a cast member during the clothing-optional curtain call. And for sponsorships of more than $500, she will include you in the script.

Note: The names of the play's coffee shop and hair salon are still up for grabs.

"I just needed the money," McGrady, a freelance journalist, said. "It's a really, really hard time for regular donations and I think that people are very careful with their money right now. ... So I wanted to go above and beyond what people can offer."

In just a week, she has received donations for rehearsal space and printing services.

The play, which McGrady describes as "Vagina Monologues meets Saturday Night Live," deals in part with the influences that television and advertising have on women's perceptions of their bodies.

"Yes," she said, "we are aware of the irony."

PRESIDENTIAL PARTY: At Nordstrom's shareholder meeting last week, President Blake Nordstrom highlighted the company's recent achievements, including the March opening of its latest store, in Houston. The company, as it does before every opening, held an evening gala at the new store. Among the guests: George and Barbara Bush, the former president and first lady.

MICROSOFT LAWSUIT IN THE TOILET? Three million pages of Microsoft documents, once part of a lawsuit against the software maker, are being shredded and are destined to become toilet paper.

The 937 boxes of documents had been safeguarded by Redman Records of Salt Lake City since the mid-1990s after being submitted in an unfair-competition lawsuit by Caldera International against Microsoft. The case was settled in January 2000, and U.S. District Judge Dee Benson ordered the documents' destruction.

Then Sun Microsystems obtained a subpoena for evidence in its own antitrust suit against Microsoft. Plans for shredding were shelved as 40 boxes of Microsoft's internal communications were pulled out of the heap for digital imaging.

"We began (scanning) a couple of months ago, and most of the work is now done," Paul Grewal, a Sun lawyer in Cupertino, Calif., said Tuesday. "We expect to wrap it up shortly."

Recall Secure Destruction Service began shredding and pulping the remaining records about two weeks ago and is wrapping up with Sun's 40 boxes.

When the work is complete, Recall Secure Destruction will have converted 37,480 pounds of records into 1,400-pound bales of shreddings, Salt Lake City plant manager Cathy Keetch said.

"We broker the bales out to the highest bidder, and they are shipped to a pulp mill. There, they dump them into vats that remove the ink and break it down into a mix material," she said. "Ninety-nine percent of our shreddings are made into toilet paper."